In last week’s election, the bill came due on the defining bet placed by congressional Republicans during the Donald Trump era.

Led by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House and Senate Republicans made a strategic decision to lock arms around Trump over the past two years. They resolutely rejected any meaningful oversight of his administration, and worked in harness with the president to pass an agenda aimed almost entirely at the preferences and priorities of voters within the GOP coalition.

In the election, the consequences of that decision became clear. In the 2006, 2010, and 2014 elections, between 82 to 84 percent of voters who disapproved of the president voted against his party’s candidates for the House, according to exit polls. Last week, fully 90 percent of Trump disapprovers said they voted Democratic.

Political strategists in both parties generally consider it easier for senators to establish an independent identity from the president. But attitudes about Trump were a powerful force in those elections too. Exit polls were conducted for 21 Senate races in which a Republican faced a Democrat. Democrats won at least 90 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump in 15 of those 21 contests and 88 or 89 percent in five more. Meanwhile, Republicans carried at least 90 percent of Trump approvers in seven Senate races with exit polls and between 80 to 89 percent in 13 others.

In total, the tightened connection between congressional voting and attitudes about Trump was a bad trade for Republicans because significantly more voters disapproved (54 percent) than approved of him (45 percent) in the national House exit poll.

The exit poll found that just over three-fifths of whites without a college degree approved of Trump’s performance. That helped explain why Democrats made only very modest gains in rural or heavily blue-collar House districts. That support also powered the Republican Senate victories in the preponderantly white and heavily blue-collar Heartland states of Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota. The biggest exception to this pattern was two folksy Democrats, Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Jon Tester in Montana.

Conversely, about three-fifths of whites with a four-year college degree or more disapproved of Trump, as did about 70 percent of nonwhites. That gale-force rejection powered the sweeping Democratic gains in white-collar and diverse metropolitan House districts across the country.

The recoil from Trump, though, extended even to many of the metro areas where the GOP had maintained an advantage. Republicans lost House seats in Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Atlanta; Houston; Dallas; Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Kansas; Orange County, California; and possibly Salt Lake City.

Trump in 2016 carried only 13 of the nation’s 100 largest counties, according to data compiled for me by the Pew Research Center. But last week, about half of that already-modest group notably shifted toward Democrats in statewide races. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs in Arizona, was the largest county that Trump won in 2016; but it provided Democrat Kyrsten Sinema a decisive margin of about 40,000 votes in her Senate victory over Republican Martha McSally. Tarrant County in Texas, which includes Fort Worth, was the second-largest county that Trump carried in 2016; but last week it narrowly backed Democrat Beto O’Rourke over Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

Even with the GOP’s net gain in the Senate, these patterns represent a heavy price for the choice congressional leaders made to bind the party to Trump. Ryan, who had been among the most openly skeptical of Trump during 2016, sublimated any private doubts to a posture of public subservience and a policy of legislative cooperation, Now Ryan leaves Washington as the architect of the GOP’s biggest loss of House seats in any election since Watergate.

These reversals don’t mean Trump can’t win in 2020. Midterm elections have not consistently predicted presidential results two years later. But whatever it augurs for Trump’s own chances, the 2018 results underscored how he has truncated the opportunities for congressional Republicans. So long as the party is defined by his racially infused nationalism, it will be a strong competitor in states and House districts dominated by older, blue-collar, and evangelical white voters. But while Trump is defining the party, it also seems guaranteed to struggle in suburban areas and to face growing challenges in diverse Sun Belt states.

Over the past two years, Republicans up and down the ballot could have tried to establish an independent identity from Trump. Instead, led by Ryan and McConnell, they sent voters an unmistakable signal that they would not act in any meaningful way to restrain or even oversee him. In 2018, voters in turn sent Republicans an equally unmistakable signal that their fate is now inextricably bound to the volatile president they have embraced as their leader.

"President Trump signed a sweeping spending bill Friday afternoon, averting another partial government shutdown. The action came after Trump had declared a national emergency in a move designed to circumvent Congress and build additional barriers at the southern border, where he said the United States faces 'an invasion of our country.'"

Source:

REDIRECTS $8 BILLION

Trump Declares National Emergency

6 days ago

THE DETAILS

"President Donald Trump on Friday declared a state of emergency on the southern border and immediately direct $8 billion to construct or repair as many as 234 miles of a border barrier. The move — which is sure to invite vigorous legal challenges from activists and government officials — comes after Trump failed to get the $5.7 billion he was seeking from lawmakers. Instead, Trump agreed to sign a deal that included just $1.375 for border security."

Source:

COULD SOW DIVISION AMONG REPUBLICANS

House Will Condemn Emergency Declaration

6 days ago

THE DETAILS

"House Democrats are gearing up to pass a joint resolution disapproving of President Trump’s emergency declaration to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall, a move that will force Senate Republicans to vote on a contentious issue that divides their party. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Thursday evening in an interview with The Washington Post that the House would take up the resolution in the coming days or weeks. The measure is expected to easily clear the Democratic-led House, and because it would be privileged, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be forced to put the resolution to a vote that he could lose."

Source:

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, DRUG FORFEITURE FUND

Where Will the Emergency Money Come From?

6 days ago

THE DETAILS

"ABC News has learned the president plans to announce on Friday his intention to spend about $8 billion on the border wall with a mix of spending from Congressional appropriations approved Thursday night, executive action and an emergency declaration. A senior White House official familiar with the plan told ABC News that $1.375 billion would come from the spending bill Congress passed Thursday; $600 million would come from the Treasury Department's drug forfeiture fund; $2.5 billion would come from the Pentagon's drug interdiction program; and through an emergency declaration: $3.5 billion from the Pentagon's military construction budget."

Source:

TRUMP SAYS HE WILL SIGN

House Passes Funding Deal

1 weeks ago

THE DETAILS

"The House passed a massive border and budget bill that would avert a shutdown and keep the government funded through the end of September. The Senate passed the measure earlier Thursday. The bill provides $1.375 billion for fences, far short of the $5.7 billion President Trump had demanded to fund steel walls. But the president says he will sign the legislation, and instead seek to fund his border wall by declaring a national emergency."